IPA Blog

The morning began with a strategy huddle among the IPA-coordinated Creative Sector Organizations (CSO) group − a coalition of audio-visual, music and publishing industry representatives with a common goal: to protect creators, creations and creativity from attempts to weaken copyright.

As the world of international diplomacy hastily manoeuvres ahead of the looming Trump Era, delegates congregated at the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva this morning for the 33rd meeting of its Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR 33).

Oh Google! You’ve done it again! You have taken a good idea—one that could help creativity–and once again blotted your copybook by antagonizing the creative community you profess to serve. Yet again you have turned a blind eye to the rights of writers and creators to serve your own ends, all in the name of “progress”.

Writing for the Kluwer Copyright Blog, Tatiana Synodinou, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Cyprus, looks at the implications of Brexit on European copyright law, and wonders if, with the UK's common law model out of the equation, could this be an opportunity for deeper integration and a step towards an EU copyright code?

Over the next few months, guest writer Matt Goolding will produce a series of articles shining a spotlight on some of the world’s most prominent violators of freedom to publish. He will examine one country at a time because, while they all have the suppression of this vital human right in common, they are in reality very different places, each deserving our attention.

Two hot potatoes in particular injected extra vim into the SCCR discussion today, drawing parties on either side of the copyright fence into an exchange of views that, had we been in a pub and not at WIPO, might have led to indecorous behaviour from some.

As the SCCR delegates resumed their Sisyphean effort to define the terms underpinning the long-awaited WIPO broadcast treaty this morning, the glaring paradox at the heart of the process became apparent.

WIPO Director General Francis Gurry fired the starting gun on the 32nd Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), today, urging the participants to agree on the elusive broadcasting treaty, which has lain on the table since 1996.